


Start Thinking For Yourself

by I_llbedammned



Category: Fight Club (1999), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fights, Gen, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_llbedammned/pseuds/I_llbedammned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Clint Barton gets sent to infiltrate a violent organization called Fight Club?  He has gone undercover before, but there is something different about this.  The leader, Tyler, just seems to get Clint in a way that he didn't expect.</p><p> </p><p>Originally written for a crossover challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Hits Like a Punch

He hadn't meant for it to get this far, Clint thought as sweat poured out of his skin and he dodged blow coming from all angles. 

Clint had been undercover before, gone dark, gone completely out of his mind- all for the greater good of the people he worked to protect. When he first met him in the piss-stained basement of a shitty bar Clint didn't think much of him or his little "Fight Club". It seemed like something dreamed up by 18 year old anarchists who couldn't accept that the world didn't care about them. Pathetic.

At least Clint knew that he SHOULD find it pathetic. He was too well trained to give into idealism, or so he told himself. But when he heard that skinny little cubicle monkey speak so ardently about what they could achieve Clint felt himself starting to believe. It wasn't something that happened overnight, but even from the first night

The feeling of Tyler's fist coming into contact with his nose dropped Clint out his reverie. He reeled backwards gripping his nose and Tyler laughed through bloody teeth from the previous fights.

"What's the matter? Still thinking about the missus? The job? Do you even know what it is like to fight for yourself?"

Clint focuses more on the fight, making his blows come in tighter. He pulled back his hits as he struck, trying not to kill the untrained man before him.

Tyler laughed in his face as he took the blow without retaliating."You sure this is for you, asshole? Or is this for the government that never gave a shit about you?" 

He punched Tyler in side and got in close to send a knee at his kidneys. Still the man kept talking, "I can't fucking hear you! You're going to have to speak up!" Tyler sent an uppercut at Clint's gut and Clint bent over. The man was stronger than he looked.

"Come on! Stand up for yourself!" he taunted. Clint began to get angry. His blows came down faster and faster. After a while it didn't matter if he was hitting or recieving, both him and Tyler became one giant bloody ball of flesh and bone. Clint couldn't think, he couldn't catch his breath. It was just him and the other man panting and punching til eventually Clint fell down on the ground.

Tyler looked down at him with a grin, bruises forming on his face in ugly purple-yellow blotches. "How's it feel to be down here in the dirt with the rest of us? How's it feel not to have any distance?"

Clint smiled, feeling for once empty of pain, "Feels fantastic."

Tyler offered him a hand up. "Good. You're learning."


	2. Still Serving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint reports back to S.H.I.E.L.D. about his findings regarding Fight Club. It all seems to go smoothly, but how much longer can he keep up the act?

"They seem to be fairly simple, small time group for now. I wouldn't be too worried about them." Clint's voice sounded as he sat under the bright lights in an office in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York hub. 

The bright lights stung his swollen eyes and he longed to run away to some dark and seedy bar to go get into a fight with someone. Instead he had to do his job and report back to the men on top so that he could continue eating another day. Come in, sit at a wooden desk, explain his actions to a man that would never fully understand them. Some days it wasn't so bad; other days, like this one, he wanted to go back to his former job as an assassin and just do what he wanted. Fuck society, fuck the world, let it all burn for all he cared.

"That's it? That's all you were able to find out?" Nick Fury looked angry, but then again when the fuck didn't he look angry?, "Who is the leader?"

Clint shrugged, "Not sure yet. They seem kind of disorganized to me, " He wasn't fully sure why he was lying to his boss. He told himself that it was for the greater good of the mission, that if he gave away Tyler's identity now that Nick Fury would swoop in with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and it would be a real shit show. This was the type of mission that required finesse and a single pinpointed strike.

The truth of the matter was that something in Tyler's message resonated with Clint. He didn't want that message to end just yet. When they fought Clint felt alive. He could alway go through a training simulation at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and fight, but it just wasn't the same when he knew that he wouldn't be all that hurt in the end. He didn't have to feel bad when he hit these people, he didn't have to hold back. He could take all of their rage and they could take all of his own like brothers at arms.

Nick Fury sighed, "Alright, well if it really is as small time and disorganized as you say then we will pull you out of there, Agent Barton. No need to waste our time with another petty street fighting organization."

Something on Clint rebelled. No, they would not take this from him. "With all due respect Director Fury I think I might be on to something with them."

Fury's eye looked at him with scrutiny, "I thought you just said that it was disorganized and small-time. You better start explaining yourself, Agent."

Clint thought quickly, "They are small time for now, but I feel like they are building to something bigger. Just give me a little more time with them and I'll find the information out."

There was a flickering moment of tension that passed between them before Nick Fury relented. "Alright, you get another month. If you still don't have anything, you are being pulled."

Clint walked out of the room feeling strangely proud and wondering if there was going to be another fight tonight.

"There's something off about him." Came Natasha's voice from the door as soon as Clint was out of ear shot.

"You noticed it too then?" Nick Fury said, staring at the file that Clint had handed him that was spattered in blood that he wasn't entirely sure wasn't Barton's own.

She entered into the room fully, dressed in black leather from head to toe, "It was hard not to notice it. There's an anger behind his eyes and in his walk where there was none before. My best guess is that they are using drug conditioning and it got to him."

Nick shook his head, "All his drug tests came back clean. It's not drugs, it's something else. He's hiding something, I just don't know what."

"Let me go find out." Natasha volunteered.

He seemed hesitant, "I know you're capable Agent Romanov, but there's no females in this group. You'd stick out like a sore thumb."

She nodded, "Director I would kill these men if I was put in a fighting situation with them. An overweight office worker is no match for decades of training in hand to hand combat. My aim was not to join and fight."

"What did you have in mind then, Agent?"

"I do what I do best. I go in, find the leader, get close to them and find out their plans. If Agent Barton gets into any hot water, I'll be there to bail him out."

Nick Fury sat there for a moment, looking over photographs of men with bruises all over their arms, head, and neck taken in a piss-stained basement. "Agent Romanov, you have your leave to do so. You have a month to make progress, same as Barton."

Natasha gave a small smile, "With any luck, it shouldn't take me a month to find out."


End file.
